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The newest Republican version of healthcare just passed the House and was instantly declared D.O.A. in the Senate. Which is good; it’s not enough of a fix. Then again, neither was the A.C.A. (otherwise known as Obamacare).

I’m not going to get into all the whithertos and whyfores right now; you can get that on every news channel. (Besides, I’ve already written about it a couple of times. Both are great articles; read them.) Instead, I’m going to tell you (more…)

An offbeat news story broke not long ago about a connection between the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil and a recent release of genetically modified mosquitoes. Folks picked up on it, and now it’s becoming a common theme on the internet. Best as I can tell, there’s zero truth to the rumor, but it got me thinking: Why is this sort of thing so easy for us to believe?

Healthcare in this country has been the subject of widespread and highly politicized debate in recent years. Most of us agree that there’s something wrong, but we tend to disagree on what, exactly, that might be. It’s little wonder that the solutions that we try are subject to controversy — and that controversy includes widespread civil disobedience, of a type and breadth not seen since the civil rights era of the 1960s and 70s.

The trouble is, we don’t know what precisely is wrong. We haven’t diagnosed it. So… (more…)

For background, please read the post that inspired me out on Steven Brust’s blog, plus the original article he linked in his post. If you already think Amazon is evil, you might want to skip these; alternately, if you read them both, you’ll be able to feel more justified in your indignation. If, on the other (third?) hand, you feel that all corporations everywhere are evil… (more…)